GameStop Isn’t Worried About Trade-In Kiosks

News of retail giant Best Buy entering the used game market with automated trade-in kiosks failed to leave video game speciaty chain GameStop quaking in its boots.

GameStop addressed Best Buy’s plans at their annual shareholders meeting in Southlake, Texas on Tuesday, explaining that their years of customer service give it the winning edge over cold, calulating machines.

“GameStop understands that trading in used games and consoles is a highly-assisted activity,” the company said. “We are very confident in our business model that allows our expert associates to help consumers trade in product, a fact not addressed with a self-serve process.”

Of course, the expert associates generally don’t do more while trading in than look at the games and tell you the price you’d be getting, which is what the kiosks themseves do, but this is beside the point.

The point here is that GameStop isn’t afraid of Best Buy. They aren’t afraid of Amazon. And if you start accepting game trade-ins, they more than likely won’t be afraid of you.

GameStop is unfazed by new rival in used-video-game market [Star-Telegram.com]